what use there is in it if it were so. Is it pretended that the Creator acquired any benefit by becoming an infant child? Were there any difficult matters which he could not manage, without being born of a woman, in a state of infancy? Has he any more power to do his own will, than he had before? The clergy pretend that all mankind would have been condemned to eternal misery, if God had not been born an infant child. We e say that they could not state an absolute absurdity of a more glaring nature. There is no more connexion between cause and consequence in the above superstition, than there would be in the following statement: Some two thousand years ago, the orange tree every where became diseased, and bore no fruit; the sun descended to the earth, and on the island of Sicily budded, blossomed, and became a beautiful orange, on the orange tree; and ever since, that species of tree has been healthy and abundantly productive of fruit. It is to our present purpose to say, that if such an event did absolutely take place, it is of no importance that we should be informed of the fact. We could make no profitable use of it; nor could we any more understand it, than we can understand how the creator of all worlds was born an infant. As to this part of the information we are fully prepared to say, even if it were true, it is of no utility.

We may now consider another part of this information which our Dr. thought of such importance. We mean that part which represents the Creator of all worlds as dying in agony on a cross! In room of allowing that this information is important, we say that it shocks us with horror; and we turn from it with utter disgust! Will any one even attempt to tell us what benefit there is in such information? Until this is attempted, it seems unnecessary to labor to show that there is none. But it is very easy to discover that great injury has resulted from such superstition. Almost all the credit which the scriptures have lost, has been lost by the folly and wickedness of pretending that they teach such monstrous absurdities. Nearly all the divisions in the christian church, and all the deadly enmities, and all the inhuman persecutions which have disgraced mankind, have been occasioned by orthodox pertinacity in opinions which are opposed to the plainest dictates of reason. And after all this unhallowed mischief has been practiced for many centuries, we are now asked if such information as has caused it all, is not important! The fact is, it is important to priestcraft to deal in these superstitions; but it is moral death to community.

Another particular in the information which the writer of the tract thinks is important, is that which relates to the judgment,

which he describes as follows: We may see the dead, at his command, rising from their graves; standing in awful silence and suspense before his tribunal; and successively advancing, to receive from his lips the sentence, which will confer on each of them an eterual weight of glory, or consign them forever to the mansions of despair.'

เ

According to this statement of the orthodox notion of a judgment after man's resurrection from death, some are then and there to receive an eternal weight of glory, and others are to be consigned forever to the mansions of despair. But at the time of their being raised, and brought before the tribunal, they are all in 'suspense.' They know nothing what their sentence is to be, until it is pronounced by the judge. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all the prophets, all the apostles and disciples of Christ, who lived and died in the faith and hope of everlasting life, will then be in 'suspense! The judge will pronounce un each and every individual, successively,' his eternal sentence. It seems that there are two particulars in this description of the judgement, which we have never before heard of. One is the suspense that these immortal beings will be in, before they hear their sentence from the judge; and the other is, that the vast millions of the human race are to be judged one by one; and, one by one, to hear the sentence pronounced. Well, there is no use in finding fault. We must take it for granted. But, we ask, what benefit we are to gain by this information? With this information we are in suspense, and without it we must be in suspense; and therefore we say that the information is of no benefit to us.

We should like to obtain, from some of our mathematical divines, a solution of the following problem: As it is not likely, that on so solemn an occasion as the judgment about which they preach so much, any thing will be hurried precipitately, we will suppose that one minute would be little time enough to try one case; if so, how long will it take to go through the whole in succession?"

We have now noticed only a part of the particulars, which are stated in the short paragraph under consideration, which the author supposes are matters of importance; but which we think are, not only useless for us to know, even if they were true, but utterly false in point of fact, and destitute of the least shadow of evidence in the sacred writings, which we soberly think are injured more by such wicked superstitions, than they ever have been by their open enemies. And it is with no small concern that we observe with what facility such deadly poison is now disseminated, by means of such tracts, gratuitously carried to every house, and urged on people with all the

arts of specious sanctity which men and women are capable of practising.

The second question which was asked at the close of the paragraph we have been examining, may now receive a moment's attention. The question is, whether this information, which we say is not important, even if it were true, and which we likewise say, has not the least countenance from the sacred writings, be what we should naturally expect to find in a revelation from God? To this question we return a decided negative.

In order to do justice to this subject, we must suppose ourselves altogether ignorant of any divine revelation from God. In this situation we should enjoy the light which nature sheds on the human intellect, and should know as much as simple philosophy teaches us. Thus circumstanced, suppose the most enlightened of the schools sit down and propose a query concerning a revelation from the great Creator of all things. They would naturally expect, if God should condescend to make a plenary revelation to mankind, respecting what he requires of his creatures, his final purpose concerning them, and the methods by which he would make them partakers of his favor, that he would have some regard at least to the powers of understanding with which he had already favored them. We cannot suppose that they would expect a revelation from God, that would confound their reason and confuse their senses. We cannot believe that they would 'naturally' expect to see the Creator of the Universe an infant child, in a manger, nor expiring in agony on a cross, nor passing sentence on his creatures that would consign them to everlasting despair, after he had himself gone through the agonies of [an ignominious] death to redeem them."-Universalist Expositor, vol. 1.

The foregoing is only a part of the article in the Expositor. I have quoted thus much to present a fair specimen of the wicked dogmas now spread over the country in these abominable orthodox tracts; some of which are ten fold worse than the one just considered. Some of these Tracts contain the most impious blasphemy-and if they were printed by an individual, instead of the AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, that in ́dividual would be severely punished by the laws of the country. Permit me to ask, Why do our good people countenance blasphemy in societies when they punish single persons for this great wickedness? I now have before me one of these blasphemous, wicked and demoralizing tracts. It bears this horrid and monstrous title, "A Family at the Bar of God, and in Hell" !!! My limits will not allow a review of the absolute impiety contained in this tract and in many others issued by the A. M. T. Society.

ORTHODOX INQUISITION.

CHAPTER V.

"He that hath ears to hear let him hear.”

Dr. Channing, in his Election Sermon, before the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1830, has given the following TRUE statement, respecting the influence of Calvinism. It is not an exaggerated account. These facts are now, every day, seen all around us. We need not go out of New-Hampshire to find stubborn facts in proof of this statement. This is a true representation of Calvinism in the U. States at the present time.

"In order, that religion should yield its full and best fruits, one thing is necessary; and the times require that I should state it with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion should be held and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as it assumes an intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts, instead of strengthening, the soul's freedom, and becomes the heaviest and the most galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and conscience. Religion must be viewed, not as a monopoly of priests, ministers, or sects, not as conferring on any man a right to dictate to his fellow beings, not as an instrument by which the few may awe the many, not as bestowing on one a prerogative which is not enjoyed by all, but as the property of every human being, and as the great subject for every human mind. It must be regarded as the reviation of a common Father, to whom all have equal access,who invites all to the like immediate communion, who has no favorites, who has appointed no infalible expounders of his will, who opens his works and word to every eye, and calls upon all to read for themselves, and to follow fearlessly the best convictions of their own understandings. Let religion be seized on by individuals or sects, as their special province; let them cloth themselves with God's prerogative of judgment; let them succeed in enforcing their creed by penalties of law, or penaltics of opinion; let them succeed in fixing a brand on virtuous men, whose only crime is free investi gation; and religion becomes the most blighting tyranny which can establish itself over the mind. You have all heard of the outward evils, which relig ion, when thus turned into tyranny, has inflicted; how it has dug dreary dungeons,kindled fires for the martyr,and invented instruments of exquisitetorture. But to me all this is less fearful than its influence over the mind. When I see the superstitions which it has fastened on the conscience, the spiritual terrors with which it has haunted and subdued the ignorant and susceptible, the dark appalling views of God which it has spread far and wide, the dread of inquiry which it has struck into superior understandings, and the servility of spirit which it has made to pass for piety,-when I sea all this, the fire, the scaffold, and the outward inquisition, terrible as they are, seem to me inferior evils. I look with a solemn joy on the heroic spirits, who have met freely and fearlessly pain and death in the cause of truth And human rights. But there are other victims of intolerance, on whom [

look with unmixed sorrow. They are those, who, spell bound by early prejudice or by intimidations from the pulpit and the press, dare not think; who anxiously stifle every doubt or misgiving in regard to their opinions, as if to doubt were a crime; who shrink from the seekers after truth as from infection; who deny all virtue, which does not wear the livery of their own sect; who, surrendering to others their best powers, receive unresistingly a teaching which wars against reason and conscience; and who think it a merit to impose on such as live within their influence, the grievous, bondage, which they bear themselves. How much to be deplored is it, that religion, the very principle which is designed to raise men above the judgment and power of man, should become the chief instrument of usurpation over the soul. Is it said, that, in this country, where the rights of private judgment and of speaking and writing according to our convictions, are guarantied with every solemnity by institutions and laws, religion can never degenerate into tyranny; that here its whole influence must conspire to the liberation and dignity of the mind? I answer, we discover little knowledge of human nature, if we ascribe to constitutions the power of charming to sleep, the spirit of intolerance and exclusion, Almost every other bad passion may sooner be put to rest; and for this plain reason, that intolerance always shelters itself under the name and garb of religious zeal. Because we live in a country, where the gross, outward, visible chain is broken, we must not conclude that we are necessarily free. There are chains not made of iron, which eat more deeply into the soul. An espionage of bigotry may as effec tually close our lips and chill our hearts, as an armed and hundred-eyed police. There are countless ways by which men in a free country may encroach on their neighbors' rights. In religion the instrument is ready made: and always at hand. I refer to Opinion, combined and organized in sects, and swayed by the clergy. We say we have no Inquisition. But a sect, skilfully organized, trained to utter one cry, combined to cover with reproach whoever may differ from themselves, to drown the free expression of opinion by denunciations of heresy, and to strike terror into the multitude by joint and perpetual menace,-such a sect is as perilous and palsying to the intellect as the Inquisition. It serves the minister as effectually as the sword. The present age is notoriously sectarian, and therefore hostile to liberty."

Extracts from an Address, delivered in Philadelphia, by Rev. Zelotes Fuller.

"Witness the holy Inquisition, which the priesthood invented for the punishment and torture of all those whom they were pleased to consider as heretics. Its edicts were of such a character as to excite the utmost horror and alarm, and to render the most illustrious piety and vir the incapable of saving from the most cruel death, all those who were so unfortunate as to be disagreeable to the Inquisitors.

To this infernal tribunal parents have been compelled to deliver up their children, husbands their wives, and masters their servants, without even daring to murmur in the least-without even daring to solicit their pardon, lest they themselves should be considered as accomplices, and punished accordingly. When there could not be found the least particle of proof against the pretended criminal, he was released, after suffering the most cruel tortures, a tedious and dreadful imprisonment, and the loss of the greater part of his effects.

But, alas! for the unfortunate wretch whom this formidable, this hellish court, found guilty. The bare idea of the tremendous tortures he was doomed to suffer, is enough to shock the mind of man with horror, and to freeze the blood in his veins. He was taken to the place of execution, and there roasted alive! with no voice to cheer him but the voice of demons-no consolation was afforded him except such as fiends would offer! The holy brotherhood inform him that they leave him to the devil, who is standing at his elbow to receive his soul, and to carry it with